


Inadvisability of Leaving a Mobile Phone with a Supposedly-Dead Sociopath

by orphan_account



Series: All Roads Lead to Ankh-Morpork [2]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Experiments with Hilarious Results, Gen, Humor, In Pursuit of Science, Post Reichenbach, Sherlock is a bloody git, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, "Go Get The Bloody Milk Yourself, You Git."</p><p>Sherlock blows up a pair of lungs in Moist's office. Moist is not amused by this development. At all.</p><p>Set further down the road in All Roads Lead to Ankh-Morpork.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inadvisability of Leaving a Mobile Phone with a Supposedly-Dead Sociopath

**Author's Note:**

> This was seriously just a cracky thing that I wrote up because I did not want to deal with murders and journalism. I am not sure why I wrote it, just that I wanted to write something with texts and voicemail.
> 
> I hope I didn't screw up too much.
> 
> Also, Britpicking and betaing would be appreciated!
> 
> Timeline: Three years after The Reichenbach Fall (and subsequently With the Sword of Truth).

12:06 PM: We’re out of milk. Go get some. SH

12:08 PM: Why would you tell me this while I’m at the Post Office? I don’t have time to buy milk! Get Aimsbury to do it.

12:10 PM: Can’t. He threw a knife at me. SH

12:15 PM: Please tell me you didn’t say the g-word around him.

12:16 PM: It was strictly for an experiment. I expected him to break out into rashes at the word, not to throw a knife at me and start speaking in French. SH

12:18 PM: Why not ask Peggy?

12:19 PM: Unless, of course, she’s pissed at you.

12:20 PM: If she’d stayed out of the way while I was busy filling an eggshell with blood from someone suffering anemia, she wouldn’t be trying to wash it out of her hair right now. SH

12:22 PM: …why would you even do that? She’s a perfectly nice girl, even did an omelette for me once.

12:24 PM: It was not on purpose, Lipwig. Go get the milk. SH

12:25 PM: No. Busy. Get it yourself.

12:27 PM: I happen to be engaged in an important and highly sensitive experiment right now. You buy the milk. SH

12:29 PM: I also happen to be engaged in an important interview right now! Besides, no one would possibly recognize you as the great detective Sherlock Holmes, with all that ginger hair and stuttering.

12:30 PM: That isn’t my point. My point is that at this moment, I can’t afford to leave. Unless, of course, you want lungs all over your desk. SH

12:31 PM: You’re experimenting on lungs in my office?!

12:33 PM: It’s the only way I can get substantial results. And they’re from the morgue, before you ask. Igor owed me a favor. SH

12:34 PM: Since when did the Igor at the morgue owe you a favor?

12:36 PM: I assisted in identifying the cause of death of a particular corpse when not even he could figure it out. Now buy milk. SH

12:37 PM: Godsdammit, Sherlock. Fine, I’ll buy milk, but after I’m done with the interview.

12:38 PM: Good. SH

—

“This is the Golem Trust. Leave a message after the beep. If you’re Moist von Lipwig, no, you’re not topping tonight either.” _beep_

“Er, Spike? It’s me. Sherlock just blew up a pair of lungs in my office. I know, it’s hard to believe, but he really did. And…um. We’re going to have to postpone that date. I have to clean it up. Sorry, I’ll make it up to you somehow! Trust me.”

—

3:27 PM, _mass text to Angua, Sally, Cheery, Sacharissa_ : Looks like I’ll be joining you for Girls’ Night Out after all.

3:28 PM: what happened

3:29 PM: Oh, no. You okay? Alaicas

3:30 PM: Doing fine, actually. Unfortunately, Moist’s guest blew something up in his office, and now he’s stuck with the cleanup. Can’t say I pity him.

3:32 PM: You’re kidding.

3:33 PM: damn

3:33 PM: same time then

3:34 PM: Sure.

3:35 PM: Are we going to have those pink shots with umbrellas in them? CL

3:36 PM: absolutely not

3:36 PM: mister vimes will go spare if we show up at work hung over again

3:37 PM: and i am not risking the worst case scenario

3:39 PM: But I did rather like the Screaming Orgasms. S

3:40 PM: do you want to be hauled in on a #65 again

3:41 PM: as i recall william was not happy when he heard his wife who also happened to be his best reporter had been arrested for “public indecency while putting on an impromptu concert at the park for a pair of ducks about to mate”

3:42 PM: I still can’t believe that’s an actual charge. Alaicas

3:43 PM: You’d be surprised at the amount of charges people create when they’re drunk. We had fifteen in for no. 65 before Sacharissa. CL

3:44 PM: Sounds like fun. Count me in.

3:45 PM: right

3:45 PM: seven at biers it is then

3:45 PM: this is going to be fun

—

“‘Lo! Moist von Lipwig, Postmaster General and Master of the Royal Mint speaking. I’m not in right now, probably busy with something, so leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. If you’re Adora Belle Dearheart, there’s a packet of cigarettes in a drawer in my desk. If you’re Terry Lawrence, bugger off, I’m not buying you cigarettes as well! Cold turkey, we agreed—” _beep_

“Mr. Lipwig? Your fiancee’s currently in jail, naked and singing Kelly Clarkson at the top of her lungs. She just tried to stab Constable Harrison through the foot. Please get her before she gets to the chorus, I don’t think I can stand it.”

—

9:45 PM: Great. This is all your fault. Spike’s in jail (along with some of her friends), I’m stuck cleaning up bits of lungs in my office, and all because you can’t be bothered to _buy the bloody milk._

9:47 PM: Well, of course she’d be in jail, she was naked and singing to the ducks. Besides, you know I was too busy with an experiment to do so. SH

9:49 PM: It still blew up!

9:50 PM: An unforeseen side-effect of adding sodium chloride to a volatile mixture. Besides, it was in a contained environment. SH

9:51 PM: Contained, my arse. It was in my office!

9:52 PM: Would you rather it exploded all over your customers? SH

9:53 PM: You know what?

9:57 PM: Sherlock, I was supposed to have a romantic date tonight with Spike! Instead, I’m stuck cleaning my office—which still has bits of lungs all over it, by the way—and my fiancee is in jail on some charge I’ve never even heard of until now. When I said I’d help you, I wasn’t saying I’d let you do whatever experiments you wanted to do, and especially not in my office! Maybe you shouldn’t have turned up in my office and asked me to help, if blowing things up and getting me in trouble with both Spike and the Watch is all you’re going to do around here. Don’t you know other people in Ankh-Morpork who could, you know, give you a place to stay where you can experiment all you like?

9:59 PM: …Sherlock? You there?

10:00 PM: Oh, hell. Don’t tell me you’re sulking.

10:01 PM: ...oh, gods, you _are_ sulking.

10:02 PM: Look, I’m sorry.

10:03 PM: Really.

10:04 PM: You okay?

10:05 PM: Okay, I know you’re there. Answer your phone.

10:06 PM: Sherlock?

—

8:21 AM: Spike? You okay?

8:23 AM: I feel like hell, but thanks for asking.

8:23 AM: Something happen with Sherlock? I heard he was sulking.

8:25 AM: I may have told him off last night. In a rather unpleasant manner.

8:25 AM: Specifically, I think he thinks I told him to get out. Though not phrased like that, exactly.

8:27 AM: You might as well have. I heard gunshots earlier.

8:28 AM: Again? I thought I told him not to shoot the wall!

8:29 AM: You go there and talk to him. I feel like hell and I’m not about to risk getting pumped with lead by accident on top of that.

8:30 AM: I don’t want to get pumped with lead by accident either!

8:31 AM: Funny, you seem to get into situations where you risk being pumped with lead on purpose quite often.

8:32 AM: It’s not that often.

8:33 AM: Text him.

8:34 AM: I tried last night. He’s not replying.

8:35 AM: Then you’re going to have to go there in person.

—

8:45 AM: …right.

8:46 AM: I’m not risking getting shot by accident, so we’ll just have to do it this way. I know your phone’s on, I just do, so at least read my texts, you arse.

8:47 AM: Despite some accidents, I actually enjoy running around with you. I haven’t been able to run for my life since I got hanged, and I’d missed the feeling that came with it. Hell’s bells, I’d almost forgotten it.

8:48 AM: So. I know I’m not going to be a replacement for your friend, we’ve already discussed that in great detail. It’s just that, honestly, these past few weeks have been…I don’t know, fun, even if they'd been a little stressful. The kind of fun I haven’t been able to feel for a while, except when Spike’s around, so you still owe me a romantic date with her.

8:50 AM: But it has been fun. And I’d like to keep having it, at least until you’re done with whatever it is you faked your death for.

8:51 AM: And, well, if it means you won’t blow up any more lungs in my office, then I’ll just find a way to turn the penthouse suite into a lab. Or something.

8:52 AM: Honestly, Lipwig. I wasn’t _sulking_. What put that idea into your tiny little head? SH

8:53 AM: Finally.

—

9:05 AM: Dinner tonight, Miss Dearheart?

9:06 AM: Is Sherlock planning on blowing up any more lungs in your office tonight?

9:07 AM: I think we’re all clear on that front.

9:08 AM: Good. Seven, Le Foie Heureux. Don’t be late.

9:09 AM: I’ll be there. Trust me.

—

_Fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Before you ask, yes, Sherlock did take on the alias of Terry Lawrence. Yes, he's ginger now. Moist has no idea why he's ginger, or why he should be worried about the first name.
> 
> And I am way too lazy to correct the "Alaicas" error, so pretend that a certain somebody taught Sally to anagram her name instead of just writing it backwards. Unfortunately it still does not help.


End file.
